Chapter Thirteen
The sun is illuminating the Sunday morning sky, reminding me of the bright and golden lights of last night’s concert.
As soon as the Uber door closed and Emmy’s face disappeared into the night, I wanted to reach out to her and fix everything.
I hate this.
The fight, the words that were spoken, the idea that we left everything on such a sour note. Nevertheless, I didn’t reach out, and gave her some time to herself.
I spent the night reeling over everything that happened, trying to figure out what to do. But it hasn’t come to me yet. All I know is that I miss her already.
I pull up my phone and type a text message.
Me:Hey, are you up yet?
Me: Emmy, I’m really sorry about last night.I don’t know what got into me. I guess I just felt weird at that concert.Maybe I just didn’t understand what was happening.But I’m sorry if you felt put on the spot. That was not my intention.
I’m fully prepared to wait for her to answer. Given that it’s so early on a Sunday morning, I’m convinced she’s probably not even awake yet. But to my surprise, her answer comes immediately. Perhaps she’s been waiting for me to reach out. Maybe even missing me just as much as I miss her.
Emmy: No, no. You didn’t do anything wrong, Evan.Not at all.
Emmy: In fact, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I thought about what you told me the entire night. I barely got any sleep, lol.
Emmy: Anyway, you’re right. I have been sending you mixed messages.But you need to know that it was not intentional. I never meant to confuse you or anything like that. I guess … I’m having a hard time dealing with so many women around you. I’m not used to it.
I read her messages and then read them again, since I don’t want to miss anything or misinterpret something.
Me: Emmy, I don’t get it. Nothing has changed. I get the same kind of attention from women now that I’ve always gotten. And it never meant anything to you before.
Me: How come it bothers you now?
She’s typing and my pulse quickens, waiting to see if I’ll read what I’m hoping for.
Emmy: That’s not true. You didn’t always get this type of attention from women. At least not in middle school and high school. You were kinda tall and lanky, and had a bad haircut. Lol. I mean, isn’t this why you suggested the marriage pact?
Emmy: It wasn’t until you became a big-shot doctor with a lot of money, and you started going to the gym, that you turned into a hunk that all the ladies love.
I read her messages and frankly don’t know what to make of them.
Me:Alright … But that’s not what I meant.
Me: I’ve been a doctor for years. I’ve had many girlfriends … they’ve never bothered you before.What changed lately?
She hesitates in answering.
I sit up in bed, watching the screen of my phone intently. Finally, I can see the dots moving again.
Emmy: Evan, like I said in my other message, if I sent you mixed messages, they were unintentional. What I mean is that … if I came off as jealous or something like that, it was not on purpose.
Emmy: Maybe what changed is the fact that I broke my arm and wanted you to be there for me. Just for me. There’s nothing more than that.
I read the messages and my heart sinks.
Before I have a chance to answer, she writes to me again.
Emmy: Evan, I really want to thank you. For opening up to me and telling me how you feel. It meant a lot to me and, once again, I’m sorry.I do want you to be happy.I hope you know that.
She sends me a shower of kiss and heart emojis that flood the screen of my phone.
Me: You’re a great friend, Emmy…
Emmy:Right back at ya, hon.
I tell her that I need to get to the gym and end the conversation. But instead of going anywhere, I lay back into the white cotton pillows of my bed, which now feels cold and unwelcoming. I feel as if someone threw a cold bucket of water over me—my body is numb and my skin is tingling unpleasantly.
I look up at the ceiling and watch the few shards of golden light strewn across it, as my mind drifts off into a daydream.
I can see Emmy and myself as we used to be back in high school.
You were kinda tall and lanky, and had a bad haircut.
She’s not wrong but, somehow, I always expected that she might’ve seen more in me than just that.
In my memory, I’m riding my bike down a narrow street. I’m heading toward Emmy’s house for dinner, but also to help her with her math homework. I feel ecstatic and very eager to spend this time with her. We haven’t seen each other in a few days, and I have so much to tell her.
I get off my bike and ring the doorbell. She answers, dressed in a pair of short jeans and a white T-shirt, and wearing a fresh layer of red lipstick. I can tell that she just finished applying it.
“Hey, come in! My mom is making French fries and chicken!” she says before grabbing me by the hand.
We disappear up the stairs and into her room.
I can vaguely hear her mom calling out for us to leave the door open, but Emmy pays no attention to that. And what would be the point? Emmy and I are just friends.
She crashes onto the bed in that dramatic fashion that teenage girls have mastered, and pulls me by my T-shirt next to her. We sit there, close enough that I can feel her heart beating, and smell her skin—the vanilla and cherry body spray, syrupy and unctuous, a smell that seems to stick to my very being. Her legs are rubbing against mine—her soft skin feels like heaven. I shift a little on the bed, but she doesn’t allow me to get away. She pulls me closer to her again, and my head grows dizzy.
“Where are you going? Come on, we haven’t seen each other in aaaages! So, what’s up?” she asks.
Her icy blue eyes peer up at me from the depths of her adolescent pink pillows. She’s so beautiful that I can barely take my eyes off her. “Umm … well … not much,” I reply, trying to focus.
“Not much? Come on, Evan! What’s up with that girl … Carmen? I saw you two together! Now, tell me!” she demands.
“Nothing is happening between us, don’t worry,” I tell her.
“I wasn’t worried. I was just … asking. Anyway…” She looks to the side and, for a second, I have the feeling that she’s jealous.
“What about you, then, Miss Popular? What’s going on between you and Chris Harding? You’ve been parading all around school with him,” I tell her, trying not to let my own jealousy get the best of me.
I know that she’s been seeing Chris for a while, and I, as her best friend, have to try to find a way to be okay with it.
“Chris Harding? He’s a dingus. And he has a unibrow. Haven’t you noticed?” She makes a serious face.
“Not exactly. I don’t tend to look at other guys’ eyebrows that much,” I reply sarcastically.
She starts to laugh and playfully places a hand on my arm.
Her small and warm fingers feel like heaven.
“Well I definitely look at this stuff,” she says.
As she does so, she crosses her legs in front of me, one of them now bobbing through the air as she’s lying down. My eyes glide across her smooth skin, from the bottom of her short jeans all the way to the tips of her toes. How can she be so perfect?
“So that’s why you broke up with him? Because of his eyebrows?” I ask her.
“I broke up with him because he was a dingus! I don’t want someone like that!”
“Then what do you want, Emmy?”
She looks into my eyes and keeps caressing my arm with her small fingers. “Ugghh … I don’t know. I guess I want … what we have, Evan. Something like this! Like … look. We’re lying here and enjoying ourselves—talking, laughing. This is what I want! Why can’t guys be like this?” she tells me, not understanding the obvious.
I reach out and tap her gently on the shoulder. “Hello, Miss? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m right here.”
Emmy looks into my eyes for a moment, and then laughs. “No, don’t be silly! Not you! I meant like … a boy!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I am a boy.” I smile.
“Why? Because you watch a lot of football, belch when you think I can’t hear you, and only have gray T-shirts?” She rolls her eyes.
“In part. But also…” I don’t finish the sentence, on purpose.
I watch as Emmy’s eyebrows travel far on her forehead as she tries to decipher what I meant.
“Oh, no, you did not! Evan Michael Davis, I know you did not just say to me what I think you just said!!” she shrieks, pretending to be scandalized, before getting up and grabbing one of her pink pillows. She starts hitting me playfully with it, giggling madly.
“No, no! I didn’t! Stop, please, have mercy!” I beg her, keeping up her game.
“Mercy?? No mercy!” she says before hitting me again with the pillow.
In the pretend scuffle on the bed, she climbs on top of me, and continues to attack me with the pink pillow. “What did you mean by that??” she calls out. “Tell me right now!!”
“Only that … oh, ugghh! Stop hitting me!! Only that I’m a boy, that’s all! Stop hitting me!!” I laugh.
“Only that you’re a boy??”
Whack!
The pink pillow smashes into me again, and I decide that I’ve had enough. I grab her wrists and take her by surprise. Not able to move at all anymore, her eyes grow immensely wide, and her mouth opens in shock.
“Let go of me!! Right now!” she says, but I can see that she’s still giggling.
“Are you going to behave? Are you going to put down the pillow?” I assert.
She repeats my question back at me in a mock tone.
“Oh, I see. Then, I suppose I’m not letting you go,” I tell her.
“Let. Me. Go!!” She struggles against my hands.
“Do you promise to stop?”
“Do you promise not to date that girl, Carmen?” she asks me.
I’m so surprised by her question that I actually let go of her hands.
She grabs my shoulders and shakes me, trying to continue the game, but I’m unresponsive. “What do you mean … ‘promise not to date Carmen’? What do you care? You’re dating Chris Harding,” I tell her.
“No, I’m not. I told you he’s a dingus. He’s out.”
“Well then … I never dated Carmen anyway. We just exchanged a few messages.”
“Good,” she says and rearranges her hair.
“Why is that good?”
“Because … you’re too good for her. She’s not your type, Evan. Believe me. I know you better than anyone else.”
“And who is my type?”
I watch her face now, the blue eyes darting across the room as she tries to avoid looking at me, the red lipstick shining like gloss on her lips.
“Evan, you’re such a sweet guy, do you know that? Have I ever told you that?”
“You tell me that every day, Dolly. As a matter of fact, you’re just about the only girl who does. All the others see me like a dork,” I complain.
Emmy puts her arms around my neck. “That’s because you are.” She laughs. “But don’t worry. They just need to see what I see. How sweet, wonderful, amazing, caring, kind, smart, and funny you are!”
“And handsome?” I ask playfully.
“And handsome, of course.” She grins.
“But what if they don’t? What if … I never find my soulmate? What if I don’t find another girl who sees all those things in me? The things that you see?”
She looks at me intently as if trying to read my mind. “Is that what goes on in that smart head of yours? That’s what’s bothering you?” she asks.
“Sometimes…”
“You will, Evan. Stop worrying. Life is not an eternal high school,” she says wisely. “At some point, we’ll grow up, graduate, move away from here, meet other people and … just get on with our lives.”
I ponder her words for a moment. “Hey, Dolly, do you think we’ll still be best friends in the future? Say … ten years from now?”
“If you don’t marry Carmen,” she jokes.
“Come on, I’m serious.”
She shifts and lands on the pillows next to me. I look at her face and can see that she’s worried. “Well, honestly, I’m afraid you might forget about me.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Come on. You’re going to college to become a doctor. And you will because you’re the smartest guy I’ve ever met. And then … you’re going to become this incredibly successful, rich doctor and just … forget about me. You’ll probably get married to some rich, spoiled heiress or something and I won’t mean anything to you anymore…”
“Emmy, is that really what concerns you?”
“Yes. I mean … you’re the best part of my life. You always have been, ever since we met. But I’m a little worried about what’s gonna happen when you leave for college.”
I wrap my arm around her and pull her close. “That’s not going to happen. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the best part of my life too. Sure, I want to become a doctor and I want to help people. But that wouldn’t mean anything to me at all if I couldn’t share it with you. You’re my best friend and always will be, no matter what.”
“Do you promise?” She looks up at me.
“I swear.”
“What if … you get married and … you know…”
“Tell you what. I have an idea. How about, if neither of us is married by the time we turn thirty, we marry each other?” I ask her.
My heart is pounding like thunder now as I realize that I’m asking the girl I love, my best friend, to marry me.
“To each other?” she says, and I start to laugh.
“Of course, to each other!”
She thinks for a moment, and then her face lights up. “Yes! Yes, I’m in. Let’s get married! I mean … when we’re thirty!”
Emmy extends her hand to shake mine as if we’ve just completed a business transaction. I take her tiny hand in mine and shake it a little.
“Wait. One more thing,” she says, still gripping my hand.
“What is it?”
“If we do go through with the marriage pact, we’ve got to get married in Paris. At the top of the Eiffel Tower.”
“Deal,” I say, and she shakes my hand once more. “There we go. Now we’re linked for life by this pact—this marriage pact,” I tell her.
“So, we are. And I’ll keep you to this promise,” Emmy says.
Back in my bedroom, the memory from long ago fades away from the surface of my mind. Her words still echo in my head, though, like a line from a movie.
I’ll keep you to this promise.
“No, you won’t.”